Invariably, websites that convert to “mobile-friendly” get far worse, less usable, and slower.

Amazing that we are going backwards so far so fast because people are idiots.

God, The Leftovers is so brilliant it’s an embarrassment to other TV shows.

And Carrie Coon…well, Damon Lindelhof said something great about her that is so apt. I’ll just quote it.

Carrie has to know that that’s a comedic reading, but Nora would not want to be laughed at in that instance — she’s so frustrated. And that’s what I think is really interesting, for someone who is so clearly in control of her own life, she keeps doing these crazy things — whether it be hiring a prostitute to shoot her in the chest or getting the Wu-Tang tattoo or locking all the doors in her house as if Kevin is going to try to get in a window. She does all these irrational, unreasonable things, yet she seems completely and totally sane and under control when she’s essentially behaving like a crazy person. I don’t know how Carrie does that. I think that if you were to ask most people, “Do you think that Nora Durst is crazy?” They would say, “What? No!” But I would like to read you from the list of 10 things that Nora Durst has done and ask you that question again.

Carrie is such a wonderful actor that she’s doing all these deranged things yet she brings you into her own world so skillfully that it all seems reasonable. But if you actually think about them for a moment they are all FUCKING INSANE.

Also, there has never been such a good show that deals with the issues of why the stories we tell matter, what they say about us, and what us listening to and believing in each other’s stories gives us, takes from us, and obligates us to be and to do — and to hope for.

I read the Fabius Maximus site because it often has cleverly correct ideas and conceptions of the world intermixed with ludicrous, absurd or offensive ideas. Sometimes, I am not sure which is which — and that is exactly why I do continue to visit.

Like in this post.

The whole idea of “beta males” is an absurd oversimplification of something occurring to the social realm as society and its relations changes. I just skip over those parts.

However, these paragraphs are stunningly perspicacious.

For centuries every generation of the West has been a journey into the unknown, with social change the only constant. We have consistently stumbled our way to success, with the occasional failure like those of the communist and fascist nations. That those were intellectual experiments should worry us, since we too are making radical changes based only on ideology — abandoning our successful strategy of incremental changes.

The most common reaction in comments to this series is that “nothing much will change.” That’s delusional. We have had the current social system of romantic love and nuclear families for an eyeblink of time in humanity’s long history. It is no more natural than the many other systems our species has used.

Something that I’ve been concentrating on more lately is the persistent denial of the huge social alterations that have occurred in my lifetime and immediately before. Many people insist that nothing has changed or that if it has changed, it doesn’t matter, or that I’m just delusional.

I think because I’ve never been strongly connected even to my own society and culture that it is easier for me to perceive these shifts, and also because I’m never quite “in the moment.” Wherever I am, I am always elsewhere too. Watching and not immersed.

Regardless, the obliviousness to enormous social alterations is something I’m very interested in sociologically. That someone else has noticed that in a different context is heartening in a way.